110 AFN - A Genderbender
by FanPanda13
Summary: Ten years have passed since the fall of the Avatar, and Princess Azuki of the Fire Nation (fem!Zuko) is struggling with her position in a world ruled by her power-hungry mother, Fire Lord Ozalia. Meanwhile, Toraka of the Southern Water Tribe (male!Katara) struggles not to lose himself by losing hope. Genderbender reboot of "Love Me, Don't Lie", a story requested by ObeliskX.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:**

I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender.

This is an alternate-history, gender-bent ATLA world, set ten years after Sozin's Comet arrives. In this story, the Avatar failed to defeat the Fire Lord, but the Avatar is not dead and the world is not entirely without hope.

This story was requested by the very kind ObeliskX, who has patiently waited for it for months. I find the concept of gender-bending ATLA really challenging as a writer, and these characters have only recently come alive for me. So before you get too far, you should know that this story is not a re-telling of ATLA with a gender swap. If you're looking for something like Katara, but with male body parts, and Zuko, but with female body parts, you're probably not going to be happy with this. I'm going for something more like: what characters would emerge in a gender-swapped world and how would that change the story? So they're sort of new characters, with the spirit of the old and facing similar struggles to what the old characters were facing.

Since the character names in a gender-bender can be hard to follow, here is a reference guide:

 **Character Guide**

Aana = female Aang, age 22

Water Tribe: Toraka = male Katara, age 26; Koska = female Sokka, age 24; Chief Hakana = male gran gran; Akoda = female Hakoda

Fire Nation: Azuki = female Zuko, age 24; Zulon = male Azula, age 26; Fire Lord Ozalia = female Ozai; Aunt Iris = female Iroh

Toph = ambiguously gendered Toph, age 22 (I don't think Toph should be defined by gender.)

I hope you enjoy the experiment!

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 _110 A.F.N. (110 years in the Age of the Fire Nation)_

It was the light that had drawn Princess Azuki to the Southern Water Tribe. Years later, she would look back on that singularity and wonder what universal force orchestrated it and what it had meant.

Today Azuki could see only as far as the curtains blocking her mother, Fire Lord Ozalia, from her sight.

"Your face could get stuck like that, you know."

Azuki shivered and stood up straight as her older brother, Zulon, leaned slightly in her direction to taunt. They were facing the curtains together, waiting for their audience with their mother. They had been summoned.

"It will not," Azuki said.

Zulon raised one eyebrow in a perfectly sinister arch. "Why sister, are we really going to play a child's game?" He lowered his voice. "Would it comfort you if said 'it will so'?" He laughed. Zulon's laughter always made Azuki's skin crawl.

She lowered her head. At twenty-four, she was far from childhood. Fire glowed behind her mother's curtain and someone yelled in anguish. Azuki shuddered again. No. She was not a child. She doubted if anyone in the Fire Nation had retained that innocence.

Her mother's guards dragged a man dressed in rags from behind the curtain. He clutched a blackened shoulder — the smell of burnt flesh always turned Azuki's stomach - and he was followed by a woman, sobbing without tears or sound. The woman met Azuki's eyes and Azuki wondered if she was the man's wife or sister or mother or daughter. The depth-less sorrow in the woman's face and her dirty, leathery skin made it impossible for Azuki to know her age. She had the sudden instinct to reach out to the woman. She clenched her hands at her sides instead.

"Prince Zulon and Princess Azuki," another guard called loudly. Azuki startled and looked up. The guard had no emotion in her eyes that Azuki could see. "The Fire Lord will see you now, your highnesses."

Zulon strode forward confidently. Azuki followed at his heels, resisting the urge to drop her head in shame. The last time their mother had granted them an audience, it had been to command them to burn down another village in the resisting Earth lands. Azuki wondered what nightmare was about to befall her this time.

She tripped accidentally over a ripple in the carpet leading to her mother and she thought she heard a guard snicker softly as she clumsily righted herself, thankfully avoiding a full dive into the ground. Azuki ignored the guard's snicker. She wasn't sure when it had happened, but sometime over the last ten years she had stopped seeing herself as worthy of her nation's respect. Her honor was gone. She deserved far more than snickering.

* * *

Toraka of the Southern Water Tribe stood alone on the upper decks of his grandfather's ship. They were in the warm waters to the west of the Fire Nation's shores, and Toraka kept a steady eye on the seas. Toraka was, as far as anyone knew, the only non-captive waterbender left in the world. There were rumors that Fire Lord Ozalia had him marked personally for capture and a slow, painful death.

She would never capture him alive.

He watched the seas. They were still, but his heart was not.

"Toraka!"

Koska ran up from behind him. Toraka smiled at his little sister, then smiled grimly at himself for continuing to think of her as "little" anything. Koska was slender but muscular and the years Koska had spent training with the Kyoshi Warriors after the fall of the Earth Kingdom and before the Kyoshi Warriors had finally been forced to abandon their island to the Fire Nation had turned his sister fierce.

"What is it, Koska?"

"Fire Nation ships spotted far to the north!" Koska pointed. "We're going to need to go under."

"Got it," Toraka said. He focused his energy on the motion of the water and began pulling it up around them, raising a mist above the ship as he did so. The water swooped up to the sides of the ship and swirled around them, waves cresting up at Toraka's command. Then, in a sweep of power, he pushed the ship into the sea, sinking it in a bubble of air and forcing it down until a ship could pass above them at the surface without any knowledge of the Water Tribe vessel below it.

He breathed out a calming breath as Koska sucked in a worried breath next to him. He glanced sideways at her.

"Sea dragon," Koska whispered, pointing up toward the top of the bubble, where an enormous sea dragon swam above them.

"Sea dragon," Toraka echoed, and he did not not mention his memory of Aana riding the Unagi at Kyoshi Island, back when they had all still been together. He knew from the glassy sheen in Koska's eyes that he was not alone in reliving the moment anyway.

Koska seemed to steel herself after the sea dragon had passed. "Grandfather wants us to meet him below deck to go over plans for a new mission."

Toraka nodded. "Now?"

"Now," Koska confirmed.

Toraka sighed and watched Koska slip away to the stairs that led below deck, where their grandfather would be waiting. It still seemed strange after all this time to be reunited with his grandfather, who had left the Southern Water Tribe with the other warriors two years before Toraka and Koska had met the Avatar. At the time, the Fire Nation had been nearing victory in the war. Now, the Fire Nation's victory was final. Fire Lord Ozalia (the United Water Tribes refused to acknowledge her as the Phoenix Queen) ruled over all the land. Where the Northern Water Tribe had once stood, a Fire Nation outpost thrived. The impoverished village Toraka and Koska had grown up in was completely abandoned, as was the entirety of the South Pole.

There was no more Earth Kingdom. There were still Earth lands, but Fire Lord Ozalia had made use of the second coming of Sozin's comet by burning through the Earth Kingdom and destroying the King's rule. The people of the Earth Kingdom had been strong, and Toraka knew there were still earthbenders in hiding and rebel clans moving through the charred remains of the Earth Kingdom's once glorious lands. But Earth King himself was now no more than a puppet for Fire Lord Ozalia.

Then there was Aana.

Aana, the Avatar and the last surviving Air Nomad, was locked away deep within the Fire Lord's palace.

But Toraka couldn't think about Aana locked away for so long without his temper flaring up, and that would mean rough seas.

Because Fire Lord Ozalia may have controlled all the land, but the United Water Tribe controlled the seas.

Toraka silently thanked the Spirit of the Ocean again, for strengthening the Water Tribe, and strengthening him, when they had most needed it. To the great dismay of Fire Lord Ozalia, the ocean tides refused to bow to the Fire Nation. Instead, they heeded to Toraka's own will. Toraka thought it was partly because he was the only waterbender left and partly because the Spirit of the Ocean shared Toraka's fury with the Fire Nation.

(Fire Lord Ozalia should have thought twice before allowing one of her generals to destroy the Moon Spirit. She apparently didn't know of the deep connection between the Ocean and the Moon, or how angry and unpredictable the Ocean could become now that the Moon Spirit was gone.)

With the Ocean Spirit's help, Toraka sank Fire Nation vessels and destroyed barricades. He sent tidal waves over the shores of the Fire Nation and terrorized ships with hurricanes.

The Water Tribe ruled the seas, and everything in the seas, and that is why the Water Counsel — a group of the former Southern and Northern Water Tribe's greatest chiefs and masters — continued to thrive, along with hundreds of Water Tribe refugees, on an island so far in the middle of the ocean that the Fire Nation would never find them.

And if they ever did…

Torako clenched his jaw. He had a war meeting to attend. First though, someone had to deal with the Fire Nation ship passing above.

He focused his energy on the ship that had been unlucky enough to cross his path, and in one great blow, he sent up a wave that capsized the ship. The noise was loud above them, and Toraka flinched at the thought for the many lives he had just ended. The Ocean Spirit was vindictive though, and it seemed to Toraka that the spirit's laughter was echoing through the water.

Toraka walked calmly to the stairs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes:**

I do not own ATLA.

 **Character Guide**

Aana = female Aang, age 22

Water Tribe: Toraka = male Katara, age 26; Koska = female Sokka, age 24; Chief Hakana = male gran gran; Akoda = female Hakoda

Fire Nation: Azuki = female Zuko, age 24; Zulon = male Azula, age 26; Fire Lord Ozalia = female Ozai; Aunt Iris = female Iroh

Toph = ambiguously gendered Toph, age 22 (I don't think Toph should be defined by gender.)

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

Fire Lord Ozalia reigned over all the lands. There was never enough to satisfy the power hungry, though. That's what the only person who had ever really supported Azuki used to say.

Azuki sometimes wondered what it had been like for her mother and her aunt growing up together in the Fire Palace. Had Ozalia and Iris been as far apart as she and Zulon? Had they fought? If the sisters had been close, what happened? When? Azuki knew when her mother had stolen Iris's birthright as the true Fire Lord. Everyone knew that. It had happened after Iris lost her daughter in battle in the Earth Kingdom. When had Ozalia become hungry enough for power to want to take it from her own sister though? Iris would always have wanted her sister's counsel. Was "princess" such an inferior title?

Azuki thought of Aunt Iris almost every day. She had been a true mother to Azuki where Ozalia had failed. When Ozalia cast Azuki out of her own country on a fool's mission for speaking out of turn at a war meeting, Iris journeyed with Azuki away from their home. Azuki argued with her to stay in the Fire Nation. Iris wasn't the one whose honor had been lost. She was the one that deserved to be punished. Iris said: "It isn't my home either if you aren't there, Princess Azuki."

She didn't need to say that her own daughter was buried outside the borders of the great city of Ba Sing Se.

Which is why Azuki was thinking about Iris now.

Ba Sing Se.

Where Azuki had betrayed her aunt. Iris had worked tirelessly to show Azuki the difference between right and wrong, but ultimately, Azuki got it wrong. She let Zulon seduce her with talk of home and mother's love. She helped him capture the young Avatar, and she lost everything doing it.

It took Azuki a long time to realize that that was when she'd truly lost her honor. Because it was not honorable to help her power-crazy mother capture a twelve-year-old girl and lock her up for life. Azuki still couldn't think about the way Aunt Iris had looked at her that last time.

"I've felt for a long time that mother hasn't been using us to the best of our abilities," Zulon said. They were walking down the palace halls away from the meeting with their mother. "But I'd say that went better than even I could have expected."

"For you it did," Azuki muttered. She did not mutter the thought that came next: the meeting had gone far worse for the already terrorized people of Ba Sing Se. Zulon had just been promoted to "Earth Lord."

Azuki wondered if Aunt Iris was in Ba Sing Se now. After the Avatar's capture, Iris was imprisoned as a traitor. A few months later, Fire Lord Ozalia announced the death of her sister and held a somber memorial service designed to intimidate the people of the Caldera, where the Fire Palace was located. It was a convenient story, and perhaps it made Azuki's mother sleep better at night to claim that the only woman alive with a rightful claim to the title "Fire Lord" was dead.

But as for Azuki, she would have bet her own claim to the throne (however limited that claim was) that Iris had escaped the Fire Nation prison long before Sozin's Comet ever arrived. Perhaps she was living disguised in the Earth lands as a refugee. Perhaps she was serving tea in Ba Sing Se. Azuki wondered if Iris ever risked using her firebending to warm the tea. That thought almost made Azuki smile. Almost. Azuki didn't drink tea herself these days.

"Earth Lord." Zulon tried the title out like he still thought maybe he could negotiate for something else. "I like it. The Earth lands have so much left to offer in terms of resources. Now that I'll be stationed in Ba Sing Se as the Earth Lord, I can make sure we're taking advantage of everything available to us."

"What could you possibly want that you don't already have?" Azuki asked. The Fire Palace had been made over in the last few years to emphasize the Fire Lord's ultimate victory. Everything Ozalia touched was gold or silk. Zulon hadn't walked from the palace on his own two feet for three solid years. Azuki was probably the only member of the royal family whose bedroom wasn't adorned in lush fabric and jewel-encrusted furniture. She preferred to keep it simple. Meditation was easier that way. And she had a lot to meditate on.

"You should be thrilled," Zulon said, narrowing his eyes. "This is a promotion for you too...Water Lord…"

Azuki cringed as her face went red with shame.

"Just imagine how much glory there would be for you if you managed to bring down Toraka the Waterbender."

"I might as well have been banished again," Azuki said. "Mother is sending me out to do the impossible. Only an idiot would set off into the ocean with Toraka as her target."

Zulon smirked. "So you're going to turn down the title? Stay here alone with mother?"

Azuki's hands were shaking. She hadn't realized until just then. She ignored Toraka's question. "All of Ember Island was wiped out by a tidal wave last week."

Zulon waved his hand to the side. "Bad weather. So what? It was just a vacation area."

"There were people who died on that island."

"And your point is?"

Azuki frowned. "Don't you even care? Innocent people died. Fire Nation people!"

Zulon stopped them at a place in the hall where he would turn right to head to his own chambers and Azuki would turn left, to go where she always went when she hated herself like this. "What exactly are you saying?" Zulon asked.

"Toraka's doing it," Azuki said. She knew it. It couldn't not be him.

Zulon laughed. "One waterbender can't cause a tidal wave strong enough to destroy an entire island."

Azuki did not laugh. "You'd be surprised what one waterbender can do."

* * *

"Toraka, we waited for you," Toraka's grandfather said, lifting up a cup of tea he'd been drinking in what appeared to be a "welcome to the table" gesture. Toraka liked his grandfather's face. It was weathered from time spent on the seas and there were thick lines etched there that marked his grandfather's joyful spirit.

Toraka bowed to his grandfather, the commander of the ship, emeritus Chief of the Southern Water Tribe and the man who'd had enough faith in him as a sixteen-year-old to send him off on a journey to look after his little sister and the young Avatar. The passing of ten years had not minimized Toraka's failure. He still felt small in front of his grandfather. "Chief Hakana," he greeted the man.

"You and your formalities!" His grandfather laughed. "Koska waltzes in like she owns the place and sits wherever she likes."

Koska looked up from a map that was spread out on the table. "Hey! I practically live here!"

"I know," grandfather said warmly.

Koska looked appeased. She did practically live down here. Except for when she was practicing to keep her warrior skills sharp, Koska spent her time pouring over maps and charts in this room, planning out their next move, their next stop. The fact that so many members of the Water Tribes had managed to retreat safely from the Fire Nation to an island in the middle of the ocean was only possible because of Koska's planning (and, Toraka supposed, his brawn).

Toraka sat down across from his grandfather, nodding cordially to the others there for the meeting. Toraka found taking his place at this table uncomfortable. His memories of his father didn't include any discussions of succession, and grandfather had never wasted time indulging either Toraka or Koska purely because they were the grandchildren of the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe. They had been treated like normal children, not the heirs to tribal leadership. But now that Toraka had emerged as a master waterbender, his status as Chief Hakana's only grandson bought him a seat at the head of most tables. Toraka hated it.

"We have a new plan, Master Toraka," the man to Toraka's left said. Toraka hated being called "Master" as well.

"We're going to take over one of the islands off the shore of the Fire Nation," the woman to the right said.

"And how are we going to do that?" Toraka asked. He was fatigued. Sometimes he wondered if there would ever be a time when he felt anything but tired again.

The room was quiet.

That meant something.

Toraka closed his eyes and rested his forehead in his hands for a moment before looking up again. Koska was strategic, but Toraka was no fool.

"You want me to destroy another island."

The room was silent for an uncomfortable period of time, until Koska sighed.

"We need a base closer to the Fire Nation. It's our only hope of rescuing Aana." Koska pointed to an island on the map. "That's the one. It's just a few miles from the entrance to the Caldera, it has good ground coverage, and it's far enough into the ocean for us to maintain our advantage-"

"You mean to use me," Toraka said dryly. Because he was their advantage. The only waterbender available to act as a counter to thousands and thousands of firebenders.

Koska blushed. "There aren't very many people living on the island," she said softly. She knew what was bothering Toraka. He could tell. Koska knew him better than just about anyone. "There's not even a village there. Just a few huts. A couple of fishermen. Less than fifty."

"Fifty innocent people whose lives depend on the fish they bring in from the sea." Toraka could never make these decisions without picturing the faces of the people who would get hurt. Somehow, the idea of hurting people who had chosen lives that were so tied up in his own element made it all the worse.

"We have to make sacrifices," grandfather said. He didn't look happy about this either. He only looked like someone who would do what he had to do to ensure the survival of his people. "The death toll will be low. You can roughen up the water for a few days beforehand so that they have some warning that…something is coming. Some of them will leave on their own."

"Others will be washed away to their deaths."

It wasn't honorable to sacrifice the innocent. Sometimes Toraka thought that maybe he understood the Fire Lord a little. Wielding power came natural to a firebender, but there was something about using the great power you possessed to destroy things that battered up your soul. Toraka wondered if the Fire Lord even had a soul anymore. Toraka still felt powerful himself, but he no longer felt whole.

"We have a plan," Koska said. She was crinkling the corner of a piece of parchment nervously. Her neat handwriting covered the paper. Toraka supposed it was her notes about the plan. "To get to Aana." She looked at Toraka with those big blue eyes that Toraka could never say no to. "She needs us, Toraka, and we need her. Please. I know you don't want to, but we have to do something."

Toraka stood up from the table. Sometimes, he was a leader. Today, he was a weapon, and if that was his only use, he had no desire to continue with the meeting.

"I'll do it," he said. "But no more after this."

Koska and grandfather nodded. Toraka turned and swiftly left the room.

Toraka wondered how many deaths he would be responsible for before his own soul was ripped into so many pieces that he couldn't find it anymore. There was no honor in what he was doing. Honor was a luxury, given to people who lucked into living in peaceful times and uncomplicated environments. It was not meant for weapons of war. It was not meant for him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes:**

I do not own ATLA.

 **Character Guide**

Aana = female Aang, age 22

Water Tribe: Toraka = male Katara, age 26; Koska = female Sokka, age 24; Chief Hakana = male gran gran; Akoda = female Hakoda

Fire Nation: Azuki = female Zuko, age 24; Zulon = male Azula, age 26; Fire Lord Ozalia = female Ozai; Aunt Iris = female Iroh

Toph = ambiguously gendered Toph, age 22 (I don't think Toph should be defined by gender.)

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

Azuki had one friend in the Fire Nation, and she just happened to be the one person in the Fire Nation no Fire Nation royal ought to be friends with.

The Avatar lived in an underground chamber, void of sunlight and fresh air. She was twenty-two years old, but she was wispy and pale thanks to lack of proper nourishment, and it made her look much younger. She wasn't starved, exactly. The Fire Lord intended to keep the Avatar alive for as long as possible to avoid having the reincarnation cycle (and the hunt for a new Avatar) start over. But she wasn't indulged either. Her chamber consisted of a single thin mat, for sleeping on and sitting, a rusty basin that (usually) had water in it for washing, and a small wooden stool that sat in the corner. The Avatar received tea in the morning, water at night and a small meal in the afternoon.

The chamber was hidden, locked and heavily guarded, but as the Fire Princess Azuki had access to almost everywhere in the Fire Palace. Only her mother's private rooms were off-limits to her.

The day Sozin's comet had arrived, Azuki was ordered to remain home in the Fire Palace. She acted irate with her mother — as a Fire Princess ordered to stay out of the Fire Nation's finest moment in history should have been. Zulon truly _was_ irate, and he'd sulked sprawled out over their mother's throne. But as soon as the airships departed, Azuki had followed her feet, which were being led by something she didn't fully understand, to the Avatar's prison.

It was the first time Azuki had seen the Avatar in months. They didn't speak to each other. Azuki simply walked past the guards into the prison, shut the heavy door behind her, looked at the Avatar and slid down the door to sit on the ground.

The Avatar and Azuki sat together while Sozin's comet gave Fire Lord Ozalia the power to take over the whole world.

Azuki left when the comet had passed. She had never said a word to the Avatar, and the Avatar had never said a word to her.

Azuki returned to the prison chamber three days later, the day her mother returned and declared herself The Phoenix Queen (though no one called her that). The coronation ceremony made Azuki physically sick. She vomited for an hour when it was over. Then she came to the Avatar's chambers and stayed for three hours, saying nothing still.

Azuki visited once a week after that, regularly, usually during times when she knew Zulon and her mother would be training together and she would not be missed.

For half a year, the Avatar said nothing when Azuki came in. They sat together, and sometimes they meditated together, but they were silent together.

Then, one day, Azuki said something.

She said: "I'm sorry."

But it wasn't enough, so she said something else. She said: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for helping Zulon capture you. I'm sorry for the way my mother keeps you here. I'm sorry for the way my family made the world suffer. I'm sorry for betraying my aunt, and your friends. I'm…I'm sorry for betraying myself. I don't expect redemption or forgiveness, but I wanted you to know."

When she finished there were tears running quietly down her face, and she didn't particularly want the Avatar to see that, but she looked up anyway.

The Avatar smiled at her. It was a weak smile, but it was a smile. And the Avatar said: "I know."

After that, Azuki started talking more. She talked about firebending at first. The Avatar had never learned how. She promised to teach the Avatar — when they got out — and the Avatar said: "I'd like that."

She talked about her father, and how he'd disappeared years before and she was sure he was dead. She talked about her mother, and how Azuki secretly thought she was insane. She talked about Zulon. The Avatar said: "I don't think he's that bad inside. He's your brother. You should try to get along with him."

Azuki raised an eyebrow and said: "You just don't know him well enough. Trust me. Aunt Iris said he was crazy, and that he needed to go down. He does."

The Avatar laughed. Azuki talked about Aunt Iris. The Avatar promised to help Azuki find her — when they got out.

Azuki said: "I don't think she'll forgive me."

The Avatar, who Azuki had learned to call Aana by then, said: "I forgave you."

Aana started to look healthier. Azuki smuggled in food and books when she could. They talked about what they read, and Aana started to talk about herself too. Azuki learned about the air temple Aana grew up in and the dragons she'd seen. She talked about her friends from a hundred years ago, she talked about Koska from the Southern Water Tribe and Toph, Aana's earthbending teacher. She talked about Toraka.

Actually, she didn't _just_ talk about Toraka.

Aana talked and talked and talked about Toraka, and then talked and talked and talked some more. Azuki thought it was cute and teased Aana for her crush on the waterbender.

"I think I'm supposed to marry him," Aana confessed once.

"I didn't think air nomads did marriage," Azuki said.

"I'd make an exception for him, Azuki," Aana said, then she leaned back and smirked. "I really think you and Toraka could be friends too."

Azuki snorted out loud. "Right. And I really think a snowball would have a chance in hell." There wasn't a chance. She and Toraka had…a history…and it wasn't a good one.

"Yeah, a snowball wouldn't make it down here," Aana said with light in her eyes. "But there is a chance you and Toraka could be friends. He's intense, like you. He cares about people."

"I'm not intense!" Azuki said. "And there is no chance."

Aana rolled her big gray eyes.

"You're completely intense. You're, like, the definition of intense."

"I am not!" Azuki said, but she was laughing too then.

"Well, you'll at least like Koska," Aana said. "Man, the trouble the three of us could get into."

* * *

For a long time, Azuki thought getting out was possible. After several years, though, she stopped thinking about it.

Aana, in the meanwhile, became more and more desperate. Azuki made a conscious effort to stop talking about "when" they would get out. It didn't seem fair to Aana to do that.

Aana just talked more about "when." She even made a point of mentioning it, as if she wanted to make sure Azuki didn't forget.

She asked Azuki to demonstrate firebending. Azuki didn't think it mattered, but Aana begged. So Azuki showed Aana little sparks, small flames, and blue snaps of electricity. Aana said she was proud of Azuki for becoming so sure of herself.

"I'm not sure of myself," Azuki said.

"You're sure enough that you can focus and bend lightning," Aana said. "When we get out, I bet you'll be better than Zulon. And now that you've mastered that, do you think you can learn how to chi-block?"

Azuki didn't see the point, but she struck up a friendship with one of Zulon's friends, a flighty guy who'd run away to join the circus, had mad acrobatic abilities and also knew how to chi-block. Azuki learned how to block chi and she taught Aana how to do it.

"But how will this help?" Azuki asked. To her, Aana's ambitions seemed misplaced. Azuki hadn't lost hope entirely, but she didn't truly believe she and Aana could stage an escape all on their own. If they had hope, it was that someone on the outside was working to free Aana.

Aana shrugged. "I'll let you know when I figure that out."

* * *

Azuki sighed as she reached the door to Aana's prison cell. That had been a long time ago, and they were still no closer to figuring anything out. She dreaded telling Aana about her new mission too. "Water Lord" indeed.

Aana was meditating in a familiar position when Azuki opened the door. Her eyes were closed.

Azuki opened her mouth to tell Aana what had happened, but she couldn't make the words come out.

Aana opened her eyes. There was something in them that Azuki didn't ever remember seeing. "I heard," she said.

"You heard?" Azuki asked.

"I've been working on my ability to hear through my connection with the earth," Aana said.

"You _heard_ what my mother said? Through the _earth_?" Azuki pointed to the ground as if maybe Aana wasn't sure what earth was…or what she was talking about.

Aana grinned viciously. "Water Lord, right?"

Azuki moaned and covered her face with her hands.

"And Zulon is headed to Ba Sing Se?"

Azuki nodded.

Aana stood up. "Then it's time for us to get out of here." She took a deep breath. "Also, there's something I need to show you."

"What is it?" Azuki asked, more than bewildered at the Avatar's response.

Aana snapped her fingers and a little blue electrical charge shot into the air.

"Agni," Azuki whispered,

Aana laughed. "No, _you_ , Azuki. You taught me this. And now we have people to find. Let's blow this joint."

She meant that literally.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes:**

Okay, so it has been a LONG time since I've updated this story, and I'll admit that it has been a very difficult one for me to write because I feel like I'm totally re-inventing the characters. Characters kind of have to "come alive" for me before I can write them, and then once they start breathing I usually feel like their actions are basically out of my hands. They do things they want to do. That has made this story feel darker than I originally intended too, but hopefully it will make the story more interesting as we go along.

If you want a more traditional ATLA fanfiction, go check out Another Word for Alchemy and the related stories.

I do not own ATLA. I do owe a whole hell of a lot of updates to ObeliskX, so let's get writing!

 **Character Guide**

Aana = female Aang, age 22

Water Tribe: Toraka = male Katara, age 26; Koska = female Sokka, age 24; Chief Hakana = male gran gran; Akoda = female Hakoda

Fire Nation: Azuki = female Zuko, age 24; Zulon = male Azula, age 26; Fire Lord Ozalia = female Ozai; Aunt Iris = female Iroh

Toph = ambiguously gendered Toph, age 22 (I don't think Toph should be defined by gender.)

* * *

Koska decided that before their next attempt to free the Avatar, they should stop at home to restock on weapons and supplies. Toraka wished they didn't have to. The new home of the United Water Tribe was a tropical island, and Toraka still didn't feel comfortable there.

The new United Water Tribe counted both former members of the Southern Water Tribe (the few that had survived) and members of the Northern Water Tribe (the many that had survived) as its people. As the only waterbender left, Toraka enjoyed an elevated status level. People who weren't close to him — and that was most of the tribe — walked by him talking in hushed, awed tones. They acted as if he were the walking embodiment of a Water Tribe god, and that they ought not to disturb him with their petty conversations, lest they reap the god's anger and bring disfavor on the Tribe.

He was unable to counter the perception. Hundreds of Northern Water Tribe benders had escaped the Fire Nation's siege on the North Pole, thanks to Aana. None of them, however, had retained the ability to waterbend. It was hard to explain why Toraka had.

Toraka had three recurring dreams, all related to the Fire Nation. One was from when he was small and his father had been killed during the Fire Nation attack on the South Pole. One was from the last day he'd seen Aana: in the caves of Ba Sing Se, trying futilely to fight off Fire Prince Zulon and his sister, Princess Azuki, just before Zulon struck Aana in the chest with lightening.

The third recurring dream was the Fire Nation's attack on the North Pole. Aana had been so excited to find a master at the North Pole, and so disappointed to learn that the Northern Water Tribe never allowed women into the master waterbending classes. Toraka had been accepted with open arms, but no matter how much he and Aana pleaded, Aana was only allowed to work with the women who used waterbending for healing.

Toraka often wondered what would have happened to the North Pole if he had fought harder for Aana with the North Water Tribe leaders. If she had mastered waterbending by the time General Zhao had shown up to attack the North Pole, would she have been allowed to fight with him and the other benders instead of being shuttled into the shelters with Koska and the other women and children? If she had been allowed to fight, would Princess Azuki have been able to corner and capture her during the middle of the siege? If Aana hadn't been captured temporary by Azuki that day, would she have been there when General Zhao made the heinous decision to kill the Moon Spirit? Could Aana have stopped General Zhao?

That was the moment when Toraka always wanted to wake up in his dream: the moment when the Moon Spirit died. Toraka remembered all too clearly watching the moon darken and feeling his powers weaken. Prince Yue had been fighting with the other warriors nearby, and Toraka recalled the prince dropping to his knees while the other waterbenders found themselves suddenly unable to bend. Toraka had been panicked trying to find Koska in the chaos that followed, and when he found Koska with Appa, he was even more panicked to discover that Aana was gone. By the time they found Aana, the greater part of the damage had been done to the North Pole. The Moon Spirit was dead. The Northern Water Tribe was fighting for its very survival. The Fire Nation had infiltrated one of the last great bastions of freedom in the world.

It was a miracle that Aana — even in the Avatar state — had been able to hold the Fire Nation forces off long enough to allow the Northern Water Tribe to evacuate its survivors. Then Aana protected the ships in the Avatar state until they were far enough from General Zhao's forces for her to return to normal. Toraka's recurring dreams about the attack on the North Pole always ended there, with Aana returning to normal.

If the Avatar can ever be called "normal" when a spirit as great as the moon spirit has been killed and the spirit world is so out of balance.

No one knew how, but General Zhao never managed to kill the Spirit of the Ocean. Instead, the Spirit in its mortal form somehow escaped into the vast ocean itself. There were survivors from the Northern Water Tribe that swore they caught a glimpse of the Spirit swimming alongside the ships as they evacuated the North Pole and sailed into the ocean in search of a new home. The United Water Tribe held an annual ceremony now, thanking the Spirit of the Ocean for its protection on the journey to the Tribe's new island home, which the Fire Nation had never managed to find.

Toraka personally led the ceremony every year. It was his duty. He gave thanks to the Spirit of the Ocean for protecting the Tribe, and he personally thanked the Spirit for his own continued ability to bend. No one knew exactly why Toraka could still bend either. Some people said it was because he was so close to the Avatar. Others said it must have been that the Moon Spirit was partial to the Northern Tribe and the Ocean Spirit to the Southern Tribe. Secretly, Toraka thought the spirits had decided to curse him. Maybe they understood the extent to which Toraka blamed himself for what had happened at the North Pole with Aana.

* * *

He was thinking of all this as they prepared to dock on the island for the first of three nights "home." Koska was standing next to him. She had adjusted to life on the island as easily as she had adjusted to life on their grandfather's ship. It had taken Toraka a long time to realize that Koska was actually the more resilient of the two of them.

Then again, Koska had a little more to be resilient for.

"Are you absolutely sure we needed to come back?" Toraka asked.

Koska was watching the shore with a telescope, but she was so antsy Toraka wasn't sure how she was managing to keep the scope steady enough to see anything.

"Absolutely." Koska grinned as she spotted her target on the docks and started waving.

"Right, and I'm sure this had nothing to do with your personal life," Toraka said dryly.

"It absolutely did not," Koska said. But she was wearing her favorite blue dress, they had been at sea for over six weeks, and Koska really didn't have a tolerance for more than eight. So Toraka was 99% sure that this stop was at least 50% accountable to the tall, fit, white-haired prince waving back at Koska from the docks.

Koska practically leaped off the ship to get to Prince Yue, who practically dove into the water to get to her.

Chief Hakana came up behind Toraka as he watched his sister's happy reunion with her fiance. Toraka's grandfather put his hand on Toraka's shoulder and squeezed. "It's good that you can be happy for your sister, Toraka," he said. "But don't forget to look for your own happiness as well. I understand that Chief Arnika is having a porcuboar roast tonight. You should mingle with the the young people."

Toraka nodded halfheartedly. Koska would probably suggest something similar later, and Yue, who Toraka actually really liked, might even offer to try to set him up with someone. He'd offered several times before. Toraka highly doubted he'd spend the evening looking for a date, though. With the exception of one really terrible fling he'd had with a girl who turned out to be all kinds of unhinged later on, Toraka had barely dated anyone. Ever.

Koska had theories on this.

"You have abandonment issues," she had said once. "Because dad died and mom looked after so many kids in the tribe that she barely had time for us, and then grandpa left before you could even do your ice dodging trip and then Aana got taken away from you and then mom got captured and put in prison and-"

"No one abandoned me," Toraka said. "People were taken from me. There's a difference." And if there was any abandonment — or any fault — he was the one to blame anyway. If he had been faster to the fight, maybe his dad wouldn't have died years ago in the Fire Nation raid. If he hadn't been a waterbender, maybe he wouldn't have left his mother alone at home to run off with the Avatar. If he had been more vigilant, maybe Aana would have been better at waterbending earlier. If he had been stronger, maybe she wouldn't have been captured by the Fire Nation.

"Well then what's the issue? There are plenty of Water Tribe girls on the island. You could have your pick. They're all crazy about you."

Toraka hated that idea. Why would he want to "have his pick" of anything? What was special about that?

"None of those girls understand me."

"What, because they aren't waterbenders?" Koska asked. "There are tons of non-benders out there that could give you a run for your money."

"Not everyone is like you, Koska," Toraka said. "Most girls don't run off globe trotting and become best friends with the Avatar and then spend years training with the Kyoshi Warriors to become lethal like you are."

"I will admit that I _am_ amazing," Koska said. "But there has to be someone out there who could kick your ass. Just…hang out with some of the local girls and see who you meet. You never know. Maybe you could find someone amazing if you give it a chance."

"Yeah," Toraka said. "Maybe."

But Koska got along with everyone and it didn't hurt her social status that she was engaged to Prince Yue. Toraka could barely start up a conversation with someone else from the Tribe without the other person making an excuse and scurrying off nervously shortly after. And if he was honest, he missed Aana more than he cared to admit. Somehow, Aana always made him feel like there was someone else out there who did truly understand him, and he doubted even she would feel like that now. She might not even recognize him anymore: Toraka, destroyer of coastal villages was a whole lot different from Toraka, penguin sledding master.

Toraka spent the evening mostly alone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Notes:**

I do not own ATLA.

 **Character Guide**

Aana = female Aang, age 22

Water Tribe: Toraka = male Katara, age 26; Koska = female Sokka, age 24; Chief Hakana = male gran gran; Akoda = female Hakoda

Fire Nation: Azuki = female Zuko, age 24; Zulon = male Azula, age 26; Fire Lord Ozalia = female Ozai; Aunt Iris = female Iroh; Maito = male Mai, age 26

Toph = ambiguously gendered Toph, age 22

* * *

Azuki walked down creaky stairs into the speakeasy that existed below the Three Dragontails Inn, a sketchy establishment owned by one of the few merchants in the Fire Nation capital that Azuki almost liked. She headed to a far corner and slid into a booth.

A voice like dark honey greeted her: "I thought you'd decided to stand me up."

Azuki let out a long breath as the owner of the voice swept his arm around her waist and dragged her deeper into the corner. Maito, her long-term boyfriend, swept Azuki's long hair to the side and began kissing her neck. Azuki obliged him, tilting her head slightly to give him better access, but keeping her eyes forward. She was thankful when the waitress came over to ask if she wanted the usual, averting her eyes politely from her and Maito while she spoke.

"Yes. A double please," Azuki said. She wasn't talking about tea.

Maito whistled softly next to her. "Bad day?"

Azuki leaned back against the padded booth and didn't answer. If today counted as a bad day, she didn't know what yesterday or the day before should count as. She felt exhausted either way. Ever since Aana had revealed that she'd learned how to unblock her own chi, a feeling of anxiety had been rising in Azuki's chest, accompanied by something unfamiliar that left Azuki feeling unsettled. Aana wanted to be strategic about how they escaped. She and Azuki agreed that their escape had to be stealthy and that they should wait for the right time to make their move. It would be the day Azuki and Zulon were scheduled to leave for their respective new posts. Zulon would be leaving on an air ship bound for Ba Sing Se in the former Earth Kingdom. Azuki would be setting out on a sea cruiser, bound for the middle of the ocean. Azuki thought her mother's sense of irony left something to be desired. Aana thought it was perfect.

"Think about it," she'd said. "Your mother practically just handed us a get-away ship. All you have to do is hang out on your new ship and delay 'full-steam-ahead' until you see me blow out of the Caldera. Then I'll come meet you, we'll let the crew know what's what, and we'll be out of there faster than you can say 'Agni.'"

Azuki wasn't sure it would be that simple, and the departure was scheduled ten days from now. That gave Azuki ten days to be anxious about about the stealth escape.

In their dark corner in the present, Maito's stealthy fingers were crawling up her thigh while he continued suckling the back of her neck, but he was clever enough to know something was up. "Come on," he murmured. "You're even more tense than usual. Tell me what's going on so I can tell you to forget about it."

Azuki sighed. Maito was one of Zulon's childhood friends. They'd all played together as kids, but it hadn't been until Azuki returned with Zulon from Ba Sing Se that it came to her attention that Maito was interested in her as more than a friend. Maito was sly, smart and sarcastic, and Azuki was attracted to all those qualities in him. He had ways of taking her focus away from the things she wanted to escape, though she could never tell just how invested he would be in her if she told him how she really felt about the Fire Nation as it now stood. He wanted her to be more upfront with him about everything, and every now and then he got fed up with her unwillingness to be totally open. They had been on-again, off-again for years because of that. He was feeling her up right now, so she supposed they must be on-again.

"I'm stressed," she said, considering the possibility of turning toward him and letting him take the kissing to another level. "I don't want to talk."

"You never want to talk," he said sullenly, though his hands were deftly loosening ties on her robes.

She thought about pushing his hands away. If there was ever going to be a time to talk, this would be it. In a week or so, she'd be past the opportunity to do it. Azuki saw Maito's drink on the table. She reached for it and took an ambitious gulp.

Maito paused his ministrations. "Whoa. Are you sure there isn't something we should talk abo-"

"If I asked you to leave the Fire Nation with me, would you do it?"

He pulled his hands away from her abruptly. "Since when did you want to leave the Fire Nation?"

Azuki looked down at the table. Aana didn't like Maito. Or at least she didn't like Azuki's relationship with him. Maito didn't have enough passion for Aana's liking. Azuki thought Aana might not have felt like that if she'd ever seen Maito in a dark corner with her. He could be quite insistent when he wanted to be, and Azuki preferred to keep some details about her relationship with Maito to herself.

"I might have to leave," Azuki said. She was toying with the idea of telling Maito the truth about where she planned to go. Maito maintained his friendship with Zulon, though, and Azuki was never completely sure he would protect things she told him confidentially from her brother.

Maito sat farther back and turned his already narrow dark eyes on Azuki. "You _might_ have to leave? Or something's happened and you _do_ have to leave?"

Azuki clutched Maito's drink and swirled it in her hand.

"Azuki," he said. "Is this about that meeting you and Zulon had with your mother?"

The waitress came back and Azuki swapped her own drink for Maito's and took another long swig.

"Azuki?"

"Forget I said anything," she said, trying to keep her voice light. "How are things at the academy?"

"They're fine," Maito said dryly. "Today we were doing knife work. One or two of my students managed to hit something. What's going on that you asked me if I would leave the Fire Nation with you?"

"Nothing." Azuki didn't feel like talking about it anymore. She thought about re-initiating the necking Maito had been pursuing earlier. She hardly ever initiated those things. He'd probably respond to the change.

Maito took his glass and finished off his drink. "I ordered rice and that fire boar dish you like."

She nodded absently.

"I thought maybe we could have desert back at my place."

She nodded absently again and noticed the candle on the table.

"I had been thinking you might want to be the desert."

She bent the fire to make it flare out idly from the candle.

"I would go," he said.

"What?" she said, releasing the fire.

"I would go." He took her drink from her hand and downed the rest of it as well. "If you asked me to leave the Fire Nation, I would go. So if you're going to leave, I want to know."

She couldn't look him in the eye for the rest of the evening, but she let him take her back to his place. Maito had the ability to make her forget things. That night, she had the feeling that he wanted her to remember things instead.

Zulon saw her return to the palace late. He was walking out two women he'd been entertaining that evening. He smirked at her. Zulon liked Azuki's relationship with Maito and thought they ought to just skip to the marriage part and have it done with. He'd mentioned more than once that he thought he could talk mom into making Azuki the governess of one of the coastal cities, or maybe one of the earth colonies, if she and Maito preferred that.

Zulon's eyes settled on a place near Azuki's collarbone that she instantly felt she needed to cover. "Apparently Maito approves of the new title, hmm?" Zulon said. He wagged his eyebrows at her. "I don't understand why you feel you have to come home so late, though. No one would care if you stayed. You're the princess. You could be doing much worse than Maito."

Azuki didn't answer Zulon. She walked past him to her chambers instead, where she spent the night wishing she had stayed at Maito's place. She didn't really know why she hadn't, or why she never did. In her own chambers, she couldn't sleep, and Azuki hated being alone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes:**

I do not own ATLA.

 **Character Guide**

Aana = female Aang, age 22

Water Tribe: Toraka = male Katara, age 26; Koska = female Sokka, age 24; Chief Hakana = male gran gran; Healer Pakka = female Master Pakku; Akoda = female Hakoda

Fire Nation: Azuki = female Zuko, age 24; Zulon = male Azula, age 26; Fire Lord Ozalia = female Ozai; Aunt Iris = female Iroh; Maito = male Mai, age 26

Toph = ambiguously gendered Toph, age 22

* * *

The tropical island the United Water Tribe had relocated to necessitated a change in traditional wardrobe for just about everyone that found their way to the island, including some swamp benders that had washed up on shore in a canoe a few years back. It wasn't just that the new clothing was shorter and less bulky. The fabric itself was woven thinner than it had been before. Some people missed the more substantial wool and furs. For Toraka, it was one of the only changes he liked.

Which could have had something to do with the fact that he was good friends with the person who had come up with the new weave.

He made a trip to visit her the day before they were scheduled to ship out again. His friend was Healer Pakka, an elderly woman that had traded her hut at the North Pole for a cave on the side of a great mountain that rose in the middle of the island.

"But you'll be an hour's walk from everyone else," Toraka had said, when he found out that was where she had decided to live.

"Climbing is good exercise for younger people wishing to visit," Healer Pakka said. "And enough of a deterrent to keep the old aunties I don't like from bothering me."

"But it's a dormant volcano," Toraka protested. He was worried about her living so far away from everyone else.

"And if it comes to life suddenly, I'll be in no more danger up here than you fools will be in your huts by the beaches, waiting to be swept away," Pakka said cheerily.

"But the Spirit of the Ocean would make sure no storm ever swept us away," Toraka tried. "I'm sure of it."

Pakka said: "I like the Ocean Spirit. I like to watch the ocean from my mountain."

So Toraka gave up, Healer Pakka settled into her hut, and Toraka hiked an hour to see her every time he came home.

In some ways, it was a wonder Toraka had ever become friends with Healer Pakka. Pakka had taken Aana under her wing at the North Pole when the men refused to train her because women were "strictly forbidden" to learn waterbending. Aana told Toraka at the time that Pakka was a rebel.

"She says if women aren't allowed to learn waterbending, then the men must be idiots, because all the healers in the tribe are waterbending every time they heal," Aana said.

"It's not real waterbending, though," Toraka remembered saying. He'd felt terrible about the restrictions on Aana. He thought later that his feelings would have been more useful accompanied by actions.

"Yes it is," Aana said. "Healer Pakka is teaching me to work with smaller amounts of water at once. Think about what I'm doing as precision water-bending. You're learning to whip around huge waves. I'm learning to direct one drop at a time."

Toraka hadn't believe Aana at the time, but Aana always thought that if she hadn't been sheltered away with the women and children when the Fire Nation attacked the North, she could have prevented the North from being taken. It was almost annoying later how easily Aana picked up the waterbending techniques Toraka had struggled to learn at the North Pole, too, and he acknowledged begrudgingly that she was probably right about healing as a form of waterbending.

Toraka hadn't met Healer Pakka again until after Aana had been captured at Ba Sing Se, and it took him several weeks of apologies before she deemed him worthy even to speak to. At the time, the refugees from the Northern Water Tribe were recovering at the South Pole, and he hadn't thought she would ever forgive him for failing to speak out on Aana's behalf. As it turned out, it took exactly eight weeks of daily apologies and an agreement to study healing to earn her forgiveness, Healer Pakka told him three years later that Chief Hakana had also appealed on Toraka's behalf.

Eventually, Toraka developed a good relationship with Healer Pakka. He agreed with Aana's assessment of her skills as well. She had been a brilliant waterbender, and he was amazed at her ability to teach him things none of the men he'd trained with had been able to teach him, even when her own waterbending abilities had disappeared along with the waterbending abilities of the others from the North. Toraka was a skilled healer himself these days because of her training, something the other men had scoffed at right up until it proved extremely useful after a particularly nasty scuffle with a Fire Nation ship. Then they thought it was very manly.

Healer Pakka thought that was hilarious, and Toraka was thinking about all this on today's visit as he finally reached her.

His master was two heads shorter than he was and selectively deaf, and there was no way for her to see his path as he climbed through the trees to her cave. Yet somehow she always knew when he was coming. She had a stew set out for him already. "None of that porcuboar," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "This is stewed river prunes and wild fungi. Good for your liver and your heart."

Healer Pakka was multi-talented. She was could get up and down her mountain at leisure even though she was well into her seventies. She wove fine cloth. She had, at some point, been the best healer in the tribe, and she was still the best teacher.

But the woman could not cook. Toraka slurped down the stew and hoped his liver was happy. He knew Pakka was happy with him for doing it.

"Now tell me about your adventures," she said, skin crinkling around her eyes. "Did you meet any young women?"

Toraka humored her joke and then told her about their most recent journey. Healer Pakka was the only person he ever felt he could burden with his troubles about being used as a weapon. She never seemed to absorb any of the burden herself, but telling her always made him feel lighter.

"And now they want me to destroy another island," he finished. "That's where we're heading tomorrow. To an island near the Caldera. Koska has a new plan to rescue Aana."

"Ahh," Healer Pakka said. "So you'll do it, then."

Toraka nodded. "What choice do I have? Rescuing Aana is our only hope. Putting less than fifty Fire Nation lives at risk can't possibly outweigh letting the whole rest of the world continue to suffer without doing anything."

Healer Pakka hummed. Then she took Toraka's empty stew bowl, refilled it and handed it back to him. "Are those Koska's words or yours?" she asked him, as he obediently began to down more stew.

"Koska's," he admitted. "But I think she's right. That's why I go along with her."

"But your spirit aches," Healer Pakka said. She put her hand to her chest to emphasize where the ache would be. "You feel that you're split in two."

"I just . . . We don't even know if Aana is still live," Toraka said. "But we do know that those people on that island are alive. And if I bring down a tidal wave strong enough to wipe it out, some of them could die." He shook his head. "Aana would have hated me for it." He held up his bowl. "She thought it was barbaric that Koska and I were willing to eat meat. Imagine me telling her I killed a hundred people to rescue her from the Fire Nation."

Healer Pakka nodded sympathetically. "War tears the spirit apart. You're wounded by what you've seen and what you've done."

"I'm afraid I've done too much," Toraka said. "I'm afraid Aana won't even recognize me if I ever see her again."

"You're more afraid you don't recognize yourself."

Toraka nodded and continued to eat the second bowl of stew while Healer Pakka looked out toward the ocean. He had learned to sit silently with her a long time ago. She thought silence was part of the learning process. It allowed for reflection. He watched the waves moving in and out. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the sun had already started to dip in the sky. He followed the light in the water with his eyes.

After a while, Healer Pakka noticed he'd finished the second bowl of stew. She picked up the empty bowl and refilled it again for him. He was three spoonfuls into the third bowl — and really hoping his liver was grateful for this — when she spoke again.

"There is always a choice," she said.

"How, Healer Pakka?" he asked. "What choice do I have here? The world needs Aana."

"There is always a choice," she repeated.

He frowned into his bowl of stew.

"Why don't you set down that bowl?" she asked.

He looked surprised at her and was suddenly nervous that he'd been caught.

"What?"

Her eyes twinkled with mischief. "Why do you keeping eating that stew?"

He set the bowl in his lap and tried to come up with an answer she would accept. "Because you generously made it, and it's good for my liver?" he tried.

"One bowl is good for your liver," she said sagely. "Why eat a second? Why eat a third?"

"Because you refilled the bowls," he said. "You…I'm…it would be ungrateful for me to refuse."

She laughed. "But you hate that stew."

Toraka's mouth gaped open and shut and he looked back and forth between her and the third bowl of stew. "But it's supposed to be good for me!"

Healer Pakka grinned at him. "So how many bowls of stew were you going to eat before you decided for yourself that it really wasn't _that_ good for you?"

Toraka put his spoon down. "How did you know I didn't like the stew?"

She took the bowl from him, stood up and put her hand on her hip. "Toraka, do you see me eating that stuff?"

He felt like maybe his jaw was malfunctioning.

Healer Pakka tilted her head to the side like she was hearing something outside the cave. "Ahh…I'm afraid I need to end our visit early, Toraka. You'll figure out what to do. Just remember that sometimes you have to listen to your own gut." She laughed heartily. "Ha! I've still got it. Now shoo!" She swished her hands at him. "Go down and enjoy your last evening here. Maybe make friends with some of the young people your age."

Toraka stood up. "But-"

"No buts!" Healer Pakka said, pushing him out of her cave. "I have my own date tonight, and he'll be here in a few minutes. I need to freshen up."

He hugged her before he would let her kick him out completely. "Thanks Healer Pakka. For the stew and the advice."

She waved him away cheerfully and Toraka departed, wondering who she was so excited to get ready for until about five minutes later, when he ran into his grandfather coming up the path.

"Chief? Are you, uh, um…" he stuttered.

Chief Hakana grinned at him. "Glad to see you were able to get in a visit with the old woman," he said. "We're shipping out tomorrow at dawn. Koska and Yue are gathering down by the beach with some of their friends. You should join them."

Toraka shook his head. "If we're shipping out early, I'll need rest."

Chief Hakana shrugged. "We'll be on that damn ship for weeks. Who needs rest tonight?" He patted Toraka on the shoulder. "Relax a little, Toraka. It's not good to be so uptight."

"I'll try, grandfather," Toraka said.

"Good boy," Chief Hakana said, walking on like he was a bit preoccupied.

And Chief Hakana was in a very good mood the next morning as they set out, but the waves were choppy and Toraka had the feeling that it was the Ocean Spirit reflecting his choppy mood. Maybe he did need to decide for himself when enough was enough, but what should he do after that? How could he help Aana in any other way? It was easier, he reflected, to let someone else decide for you what needed to be done. But then again, maybe it was stupid sometimes too. His liver might have enjoyed the stew, but his stomach had been rebelling all morning. He was never eating river prunes again.


End file.
